I recently completed an IAT test about ages. This test uses a series of pictures and signal phrases such as "good" or "bad" and assigns each one of these phrases to either a picture of an old person or a young person. Apparently, based on how quickly we press the button corresponding to "good" or "bad" over their corresponding old or young (or visa-versa) determines your specific automatic preference to either young or old. After completing the results I received the response "Your data suggest a strong automatic preference for Young compared to Old." I am not quite sure if i agree with this system of measurement, because I do no necessarily feel more favorable to either old or young people. I feel as though it is possible that my reaction times were possibly based on the culture i am most surrounded by, which is in fact younger people. I think that this test measures more of our culture rather than our preferences to older or younger people.
I have never participate din one of these tests before but would find it interesting to see the results .